Knicks’ Mike Brown Sounds off on ‘Frustration’ After ‘Lazy’ Showing

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Head coach Mike Brown of the New York Knicks

You’d hardly be blamed if you were not quite able to recognize the visiting team that showed up on Sunday at Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday. That’s because on Thursday, the New York Knicks played in Denver and did absolutely everything right, drilling the Nuggets in a 39-point win. On Sunday, a team very much resembling those Knicks showed up to play the Lakers, but looked very little like the dominant force it was in Denver.

The Knicks fell behind a Lakers team playing without LeBron James early, and from there, never took a lead. The Lakers took away a strength of the Knicks–second chance points–and turned it into a strength of their own,  outscoring New York, 15-9. The Lakers scored more off turnovers (21-14) and forced the Knicks into 18 of those turnovers. The Lakers took 30 free throws, to just 21 for the Knicks.

The Knicks came in with four wins in their last five games. They left with a very frustrated Mike Brown in his postgame press conference. They will go on to Stop No. 3 on their Western swing with a game against the Clippers on Monday.

Mike Brown: ‘Recipe to Get Your Behind Kicked’

Brown was agitated with the Knicks from the get-go on Sunday, as the team was disconnected from the start, having difficult first containing Austin Reaves (25 points), then corralling Luka Doncic (35 points).

The team numbers bothered Brown especially.

“It was due to our inability to put bodies on bodies and boxing out. That’s the first thing,” he said. “The second thing is, we fouled them. We got beat off the dribble often. We got beat middle and being real lazy about it, we’d reach in at the last second and send them to the free-throw line. And then last, we didn’t take care of the basketball. That’s a recipe to get your behind kicked.

“Especially on the road if you’re gonna get beat in second-chance points the way we did, without boxing out, if you’re going to reach because you can’t contain the basketball for free throws, and then having 18 turnovers, that’s a recipe for disaster on the road no matter who you play.”

Knicks Tumble in Eastern Conference

Trying to win that way against a Lakers team that has been finding its footing in recent weeks was an especially bad recipe for the Knicks on this night. With the loss, the Knicks are not 5.0 games out of the lead in the Eastern Conference, and 2.5 games behind the Celtics for No. 2.

Again, Brown was more perturbed than usual in the postgame, and he responded by saying that he was most annoyed with the fact that the Knicks never really seemed to give themselves a chance in the game.

Said Brown: “If we did those things, those self-inflicted things, I would be frustrated, whatever it is. But again, they had something to do with it, they’re a good team. I don’t want to take anything away from JJ and the rest of the staff and all those players, they earned that win. But I thought we had some controllables that we didn’t do a good job of taking care of. And that’s the frustrating part. We didn’t give ourselves much of a chance to win this ballgame, at any point. And that’s what’s frustrating.”

Sean Deveney is a veteran sports reporter covering the NBA, NFL and MLB for Heavy.com. He has written for Heavy since 2019 and has more than two decades of experience covering the NBA, including 17 years as the lead NBA reporter for the Sporting News. Deveney is the author of 7 nonfiction books, including “Fun City,” “Before Wrigley became Wrigley,” and “Facing Michael Jordan.” More about Sean Deveney